Recently, I learned that three Tundra Swans were hanging around in the Ausable Marsh State Wildlife Management Area, just south of Plattsburgh, New York. Tundra Swans are very unusual around here. They nest in the arctic in Alaska and the northern reaches of Canada. Most of them winter in the west, but a few head over to the Atlantic. No one knows why three of them have decided to hang out here for a while, but I suspect the lake caught their attention because of all the unusual open water this year. Or they just know a good lake when they see it.
Whatever the reason, I got over my cold in a hurry and organized a trip. A friend of mine said in amazement, “Are going to give up half your weekend to a possibly vain attempt to peer at three birds through binoculars?”
My response was a slightly more eloquent version of, “Hell, yeah!”
So my family and I headed across the lake on a ferry last Sunday afternoon in temperatures that weren’t much above zero, into a wind that literally felt like knives. It took us a few attempts to find the park because the sign had been taken down for the season, but within about thirty seconds of leaving the main road, we came upon a line of cars full of people with binoculars and spotting scopes trained on the water. My kind of folk.
And within another few moments, I had nailed species number 240 for my life list.
We spent about an hour watching the swans. There were three of them — two adults and their immature offspring. Tundra Swans mate for life, and their young stay with them for a while. Our timing couldn’t have been better. Soon after we arrived, the swans stopped feeding and began to bathe with much splashing and flapping, and then they stepped out onto the ice to preen their feathers into place. I took over 90 shots of them, periodically popping back into the van to warm up. These are my favorite:
